View full sizeThe Jay Williams Band performs at an event in Orange Beach, Ala., in August. Noise complaints about music at bars and restaurants near residential areas in the city have prompted the council to begin reviewing possible changes to the noise ordinance. (Dennis Pillion/dpillion@al.com)

ORANGE BEACH, Alabama -- In a move to address noise, traffic issues, and general congestion associated with music-centered restaurants and bars near residential areas, the City Council has approved a six-month moratorium on new entertainment developments.

“We have constant conflict between outside music venues and neighborhoods,” Mayor Tony Kennon said during Tuesday’s meeting. “We were hesitant to address these in any way during the (summer) season. I think now is the time to do it.”

In a unanimous vote, the council, in the absence of Councilman Jeff Boyd, approved the moratorium. The move will prohibit building permits to be issued for businesses or expansions, greater than 8,000 square feet, that serve alcohol. The move will also allow the city staff to review the aging noise ordinance.

“We want to re-evaluate the noise ordinance in and of itself to see if we can do a better job with that,” Kennon said. “And I think we really need to evaluate these large, mega restaurants, entertainment type of venues that might be coming to town and how they would impact us.”

The mayor used highly successful LuLu’s at Homeport Marina in Gulf Shores as an example. “You put it on the beach road and you’ve got a thousand cars coming and going because it’s a lot of turnover,” Kennon said. “How would that affect us? (It would be) much worse than a condo would ever be. So placement, public safety and issues (such as) outside music venues, mini-amphitheaters, I think we really need to take all of that into consideration going forward into the offseason to prepare for when and if they do come in the future.”

Ongoing residential complaints with existing restaurants and music venues such as Flipper’s on Bear Point, Happy Harbor and Tacky Jack’s on Marina Road as well as Cosmo’s on Canal Road, among others, have prompted the council to review existing regulations to better enforce future developments and to begin discussions on updating the city’s noise ordinance.

According to the city’s ordinance, which was last updated in 2004, noise levels are limited to 65 decibels between 7 a.m. and 10 p.m. Sunday through Thursday, and up to 11 p.m. on Friday and Saturday. At other hours it’s limited to 50 decibels. A normal conversation at a distance of 3 feet registers about 60 decibels. Those who violate the ordinance can be issued a citation and face fines of up to $500.

In addition to that section of the ordinance, Orange Beach Police Chief Billy Wilkins said another section actually prohibits the use of musical instruments, radios and the like that individuals find annoying or disturbing more than 40 feet from a property line.

“That’s pretty tough and it doesn’t say anything about decibels in that section,” Wilkins said. “Then there’s a catch-all in there that says that everybody has got a right to a peaceful existence and that’s pretty tough. And then there’s pretty well no prohibition in there against the human voice so if people are just out there hooting and hollering it’s allowed assuming they’re not breaking the law another way.”

Generally, Wilkins said residents and business owners have found some middle ground.

“We kind of brokered a peace in the neighborhoods to where most of the neighborhoods give them a reasonable hour before they get upset, 10 or 11 o’clock at night, particularly on weekends,” Wilkins said.

But during the weekdays is when problems arise.

“Homeowners basically have the ordinance on their side,” Wilkins said. “In most cases we’ve been able to work out an understanding between all the parties. There have been citations issued when people have been unreasonable about the noise though.”

Special permits are issued for concerts such as those at The Wharf, the chief said.

City Administrator Ken Grimes said the ultimate goal is to revamp the city’s noise ordinance and while most businesses have worked with the city to mitigate the problems, the time has come to try to find a reasonable solution for everyone within the law.

“You’ve got a council that prides themselves on looking at residential neighborhoods and the residential property investors to make sure that they have a peace about them,” Grimes said. “There are some situations in town where we’ll probably never be able to solve what the person gets so upset about whether it’s the noise or whatever.”

Grimes said although moratoriums are not ideal it gives staff time to vet an issue and in this case, changes to future development layouts and location restrictions and at the same time ironing out noise ordinance guidelines that may deal more specifically with time constraints and limited exemptions for special events.

“We want successful venues because that’s a true tax generator,” Grimes said. “We want the people to go eat and dine and drink and do what they want to do in the appropriate places and that’s a tax generator. But the challenge becomes at what level is that a little bit hard to manage and causing you more grief than the return.”

During this week’s meeting, City Attorney Wanda Cochran said Orange Beach isn’t the first city to wrestle with noise complaints as Austin, Texas, and even Chicago have recently updated their allowable noise limits.

“I think that staff is really asking for time because different cities tackle the problem different ways,” Cochran said. “It may just be a noise issue, it maybe zoning.”

Kennon said the city’s planning staff will research what other cities have done and report back to the council, then move forward by discussing available options.

“We just want to make sure that before we permit anything we know what we are doing and what the consequences of those actions are,” Kennon said. “We have significant issues at times right now with music venues and neighborhoods and traffic and we just want to make sure that we minimize those moving forward.”